


Some Stupid Romance

by trascendenza



Category: As the World Turns RPF
Genre: Cameras, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-27
Updated: 2007-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-04 06:33:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>There's nothing romantic about kissing in front of cameras.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Stupid Romance

There's nothing romantic about kissing in front of cameras.

Van knows this, in the back of his mind. He has full cognizance of this fact as the event itself is unfolding. He knows when there's the full lighting on them, the boom mikes hovering around, the hush of the crew waiting for the call to cut, that there's really going to be _nothing_ at all romantic about this.

And, yet…

Over the years, he's begun to notice the different ways he experiences his characters. And there were times, great times when everything clicked—the writing, the set, the motivation, all of it—and in the synchronicity of the all the disparate parts coming together, he would just be… transported. So fully immersed in the moment in fact that, if even if just for a split-second, he's able to lose himself in his character.

He really aspires to that—those moment of pure experience, undiluted intensity. It's a special kind of exhilaration that leaves him breathless, wanting more, and always serves to remind exactly why he's doing this. He's had a fair share in his time as Luke, and with how well this storyline has been going, he's been anticipating many more.

When he'd thought about it up until now, he hoped the kiss scene would be one of those moments.

But there are other kinds of moments, too. Like when he can't shake that very specific and skin-crawling awareness that comes from being observed, those times when, if he doesn't get out of his own mind, he'll go just a _little_ crazy from the feeling of fifty sets of eyes analyzing his every movement.

Just his luck that now happens to be one of those moments.

Fuck.

Physically speaking, he's here with Jake. They're trying to figure out angles while Michael and John hover over the cameras fine-tuning the mechanics on their end, but he can already feel it starting. Underneath his smiles and teasing Jake—"I don't care if he's closeted, dude, that doesn't mean he should be a bad kisser"—he's retreating inward and away from anything unexpected that could… happen.

He doesn't want to inhabit Luke for this scene. Can't.

Because. Well, no parallels here, at all. Yeah, maybe Jake happens to be the new guy on the set, a lot like Noah's the new guy at WOAK. And _maybe_ Van's had a _reallydumbstupid_ semi-crush on him since he got here.

He's also pretty sure that Jake is unavailable, in the way that has big red capital letters with double underlines and three exclamation marks after it. And if he's not, well, he _should_ be, because dating a co-worker? So not Van's idea of a good time. He's seen the mess that can make.

In essence, he needs to avoid the whole thing.

So when they get to the actual kissing part, he's locked down so tightly that he nearly feels like he's watching it all happen through the lens to their right. He goes through the motions, and lets Luke's emotions come right up to the surface, but he's one hundred percent focused. Nothing slips out.

Except that… watching it happen in his mind's eyes, seeing Jake's hand reach up and grab the back of his neck as he's feeling it on his skin, picturing the rawness and vulnerability that Jake's character is showing right now, the lapse in judgment that could ruin everything, and giving in to it, anyway…

That's kind of romantic. Kind of really fucking romantic.

Even from a distance, he can't deny that.

*

"What's up, man?" Jake says, coming to stand next to him at the lunch table. Jake grabs a croissant, turns it around in his hand a few times, and then stuffs half of it in his mouth.

"What do you mean, what's up?" Van grabs some more grapes for his plate and grabs a juice.

"Back there," Jake says around a mouthful of half-chewed croissant, gesturing back to the set with his head. Picking up a small milk carton and opening it, he gulps down a sip and swallows his mouthful of pastry. "You were kinda… I dunno. Strange."

"What, you didn't feel strange?" Van forces a chuckle. "Do you have any idea how much hype that kiss has been getting? If it sucks, Luke might go back to fixing his ice buckets for another seven months."

Jake smirks that lopsided smirk of his. "Yeah, and then Noah'll talk Maddie into getting a little cow-and-calf operation with him. You don't think that sounds awesome?" He shoves the rest of the croissant in his mouth and snags two more.

"I shudder to contemplate Maddie trying to herd sheep." Van says, suppressing laughter. He's trying not to do this, trying not to get into a conversation when all he needs right now is some time alone in his trailer with—well, with certain things that relieve certain kinds of pressures in certain areas that are _very_ distracting right now—but Jake falls into step beside him as he heads towards his trailer.

"I think you could work the cowboy look," Jake says, tilting his head in consideration at Van.

Van sighs and gives in, stops trying to walk uphill when what's waiting down at the bottom is so much more attractive. "I remember going for the cowboy look when I was like, five. My mom gave me stirrups, a gun that I loved to fill up with kool aid and squirt my sister with—I even had a badge." He grins, "You know, I bet I could work the cowboy look. I could even dig that old costume up and butcher in until it looks like something out a bad porno, assless chaps and all."

Jake groan-laughs as he opens the door to Van's trailer. (_When,_ Van thinks to himself, _did we become close enough friends that he doesn't even need an invitation to come into my trailer?_) Jake sprawls onto Van's couch, his long legs taking up half the room. "Assless chaps," he says, nodding and doing a fairly decent 'this is serious business' face. "Exactly what that movie was missing. Why didn't Ang Lee think of that?"

"He definitely should have consulted me before making the film," Van agrees, sitting on the easy chair across from Jake, propping his plate up on his crossed legs. "For starters, it would have been a musical. And in the third act, Gumby would have had a solo about his unrequited love for Pokey, with a few in-jokes about Bert and Ernie for an extra high geek factor."

Jake's smiling at him. He has one of those slow-burner smiles—it starts out small, quirked, and grows, like a fire stoked, spreads all across his face into real warmth that reaches his eyes. The croissants are lying forgotten on the armchairs of the couch.

"What?" Van says, a bit more demanding than he intended, but Christ that smile makes him nervous. It's exactly why he didn't want to end up here—again.

Because there's another parallel that he'd been effectively trying to block from his mind for the last week, and that's the way that Jake _looks_ at him. Like right now, with a single-minded intensity that gets Van's palms sweaty, his blood pumping, and his jeans too tight for public appearances.

"Only you could segue into a musical version of Gumby without breaking stride, man." Jake says, his smile still rich and warm, legs still sprawled wide and lazy.

Van shrugs, trying to breathe. "What can I say? It's a talent. Give me any topic and I'll defile it within moments."

"I could listen to you talk all day," Jake says, slowly, without a hint of teasing.

"I…" Van swallows and wishes he were anywhere else, anywhere but under the scrutiny of Jake's eyes when he's so fucking certain that everything he wants right now is written all over his face. "I—that's great. You know I love having fans," he says, blurting out the first thing that comes to mind.

But from the slow burn that starts on Jake's face, those words might just be the final nails in his coffin. Here lies buried any sense of restraint, decency, and common sense that Van may have once possessed.

Jake gets up and walks over, like there's nothing strange about any of this, like they haven't both been publicly declaring their straightness since the second Jake signed onto the show, like there's nothing strange about perching on the arm of a chair and throwing your arm around the person sitting in it.

He leans down, lips brushing against Van's ears. "Are there any perks to being a fan, Mr. Hansis?"

The ear, Van quickly discovers, is a _highly_ underrated erogenous zone.

All efforts at remembering the big, bold red letters with the underlines and exclamation points melt into nonsensical putty at the low and rumbling note in Jake's voice.

"I… I…"

For once in his life, Van is completely and utterly speechless. As if drawn by magnetism, his neck turns, and he's face to face with Jake. Van takes him in, bit by bit, because all at once would be too much—the pale curve of his cheek, the sooty sweep of his eyelashes, the dark heat of his eyes.

And then he does find the words.

"Let me show you."

He cants his neck upward, until they're so close that they're sharing air, lips barely a millimeter apart, so close that he can only see Jake like a mixture of colors on a canvas—indistinct, but brilliant. And there's a question in the hand he brings up to cup Jake's face, an unspoken last way out if Jake doesn't want this—

But, _yes, oh thank you, yes_, he's leaning into Van's touch, and on the exhale, they're kissing, nothing at all like on the set because this is just them, just their lips and their teeth and their bodies tangling together as Jake falls into his lap. There's no story except for the one they're writing as they go, tracing out the letters with their tongues and shaping sentences with the tips of their fingers in each other's hair.

And this is one of those moments—the pure, undiluted intensity. The layers of Van peel away until he just _is_, until there's nothing more than this, nothing more than his palms on the bare skin of Jake's back, the ragged heave of Jake's breath in his ear, the staccato of his pulse and the amused, distant realization that, especially up close… this really is kind of romantic.

This time, he wouldn't even bother trying to deny it.


End file.
